Gesture heated minds: Rapids sports boss defends coach Djuricin

Bickel condemned medial interpretations of “grip on the head”: “Goes in the direction of damage to reputation!” The trainer rejected a conscious hand movement towards the fans and wants to continue fighting.

Vienna – A gesture by coach Goran Djuricin overshadowed Rapid’s reappraisal of the weak soccer cup appearance in Mattersburg (5:4 i.E.) on Thursday. Djuricin grabbed his head with his middle finger after the end of the game. As a conscious gesture to the green-white appendage, who has been calling out “Gogo raus” for weeks, he didn’t want it to be understood.

“I vehemently resist insulting our own fans in any way. I wouldn’t dream of doing that,” Djuricin stressed in a Rapid press conference. There was no reason to apologize for anything. But Djuricin couldn’t give an exact reason for his hand movement. “The game was very hectic. But to interpret something like that into the game is sad. That’s a cheek.”

“Find it wicked and disgusting.”

The head coach received support from Rapids Sports Managing Director Fredy Bickel, who also criticized the media coverage based on ORF TV pictures. “I find it malicious – not to say disgusting,” said the Swiss about the interpretations of the supposed gesture. “Nobody is sure what really happened. For me, it’s going in the direction of damage to my reputation.

Bickel read a statement in front of the press to prevent “emotions from going through with me, too,” as he explained. He did not ask Djuricin whether he was carried away by a gesture, but he also said that he “had a certain understanding for it on a human basis”. The fans, however, could not have been interested in the hand movement at all, as their sector in the poplar stadium was far away from the scenery. See Buzz Slots here to check their bonuses and promotions!

Only the VIP tribune was within reach, from which Djuricin was subjected to severe abuse from the first minute of play, according to Bickel. That had also angered him. He had never struck anyone in his life, assured Rapids Sportchef. “Yesterday I even had to pull myself together so that I didn’t storm up to the stands.”

Djuricin’s contract runs until the end of the season. Although he’s up for discussion with the fans, his sporting leadership continues to strengthen his back. “I have an incredibly great admiration for this coach and the pressure he puts up with,” said Bickel. “For me, it goes beyond human strength. Even though he knows the mechanisms of football. Bickel: “I will also have to release a coach at some point.” But that is certainly not the case “when outsiders who don’t see behind it demand it”.

Online petition for redemption

Meanwhile, the resistance against the coach is also expressed in an online petition for his replacement. “I don’t know this underworld,” said Djuricin. He could look himself in the mirror every day. “You can’t do more than work all the time. I prefer it, I have the pressure and it’s a lot about me and that the team has its peace. But you don’t find peace in the Rapid environment at the moment.”

Everything that has to do with the team, the daily work on the pitch, is still very, very much fun for him, Djuricin emphasised. “Everything else is really hard at the moment and I don’t enjoy it at all.” But he won’t let it get him down. “There is no good or bad coach for me. There is only one successful and one unsuccessful”.

Although Rapid made a good start in the Europa League with a 2-0 home win over Spartak Moscow and was still represented in the Cup round of sixteen after the trembling victory in Mattersburg, he was also able to win the Cup in the last sixteen. In the league, however, the seventh-placed player in the table lags behind after eight rounds. Djuricin said that they are on course in two out of three competitions: “Not in the championship, we want to correct that”.

It’s home against the surprise third St. Pölten. What makes him feel positive? Djuricin: “We play at home. We are highly motivated because St. Pölten is ahead of us. We know that we’ll knock everything into it because the team is alive. We perform really well, that makes me feel positive.” But he had to allow his team to play badly for once – as happened in Mattersburg.